Chapter 3: Unable to Even Leave the Doorstep

Qin Xiaoyu walked outside, pondering whether she should also post some messages on her phone; her mother seemed to have joined quite a few chat groups.

Her mother used to work in the city, but after a car accident three years ago left her with chronic back pain, she stopped working. Nowadays, she stays home raising chickens and growing vegetables. In her spare time, she posts short videos and writes little articles. She has accounts on several platforms and quite a few followers.

The short article Qin Xiaoyu had just published already had many comments underneath, with people starting to argue over the topics raised within it.

It wasn't that she hadn't considered the consequences of exposing the truth, but an individual’s power is ultimately limited. Deep down, she had a premonition that the twenty years of the apocalypse were merely the beginning. If one had to use an analogy, Earth was nothing more than a "newbie village."

Spreading useful information was simply an attempt to help more people prepare so they wouldn't lose too much at the starting line. The future world was not something one person could contend with; it required people to band together and strive to survive until the end.

She asked An Xian for her phone, claiming she wanted to play a matching game. Once she got it, she casually remarked, "Big Shrimp is terrible at playing CF, and he swears at people too."

As soon as she said this, her mother’s face darkened. After washing and drying her hands, she grabbed a feather duster and marched off.

A few seconds later, Big Shrimp came running out, howling in agony, with their mother chasing him, brandishing the feather duster.

"It was Xiaoyu playing! I haven't even touched the computer yet!" Big Shrimp cried out loudly.

To An Xian, this sounded like a pure excuse. "You’re lying through your teeth. Your sister only cares about food; she never touches my computer. She even thinks playing matching games on the phone is too tiring, saying she’d rather go to your grandfather’s pharmacy and watch him treat patients."

Being punished despite telling the truth made Big Shrimp feel more wronged than Dou E. Why was he so unlucky? He had only just turned on the computer and logged in, yet before a match even began, his ear had been grabbed. After finally managing to save his ear, he couldn't save his backside. He vowed to burn that feather duster later.

Qin Xiaoyu posted her messages to every chat group, tossed the phone onto a stool, and took off running.

When An Xian saw this, she quickly called out, "Xiaoyu, dinner is almost ready. Where are you going?"

Qin Xiaoyu paused, rubbed her stomach, and decided to go back and eat first. There was still plenty of time, so there was no need to rush. She could take advantage of dinner to bring up the apocalypse again and figure out what to prepare.

[The child is quite plump.]

Just as she was about to turn back, she suddenly heard a voice behind her. She whipped her head around and scanned her surroundings. There was no one nearby; it was deathly quiet.

[Rotten fertilizer.]

Thinking it was an illusion, she was about to turn back when she heard the voice again. Qin Xiaoyu carefully scanned the area, finally fixing her gaze on the lush, thriving dumb canes growing by the courtyard wall, listening intently.

However, fifteen minutes passed, and she heard nothing more. She slapped her forehead—she must be hallucinating, a side effect of her rebirth.

As she walked back, she pondered what to prepare for the apocalypse, though her ears remained pricked, alert to the sounds around her.

After people realized the Earth had transmigrated, the first things they thought of were stockpiling food, water, and weapons, followed by daily necessities. It was precisely because they hoarded so much that it took a long time for anyone to venture out of their bases, and it was only then that they gradually discovered the effects of mutated food...

Gnawing on a drumstick from a free-range chicken her mother had given her, she thought about the Level 1 mutated free-range chickens. The drumsticks weren't particularly thick—only about the size of a goose leg—but Level 3 ones could be as large as ostriches.

Compared to that, plants grew even faster. Small clovers could grow to the size of ordinary lotus leaves, and some mushrooms grew so large that if you dug them out, they could serve as temporary shelters.

Sigh! Living is not easy, Xiaoyu sighed.

After the cataclysm, animals not only grew in size but also gained intelligence. Humans, however, didn't see any change in their physique, and their brains didn't grow a single bit. So much for humans being the favored children of heaven; it was all a lie.

Watching her mother eating while playing on her phone across from her, Qin Xiaoyu couldn't help but speak up again. "Mom, whether you believe it or not, I have to tell you very seriously: in three days, the apocalypse will begin."

"I believe you."

"Really? Then let's start preparing now. First, let's buy a thousand bags of cement to pave around the house, at least half a meter thick and twenty meters wide. Then we need to buy some sturdy hoes and machetes... Mom, are you even listening?"

As Qin Xiaoyu spoke, she noticed An Xian had returned to looking at her phone, and her anger flared up.

"..."

An Xian finally put the phone down, her fingertips tapping on the screen as she appeared lost in thought. Her daughter was indeed acting abnormally today, which was also evident from her son, who had been crying hysterically for nearly two hours. Furthermore, a child who usually didn't play much with phones or computers had managed to churn out a two-thousand-word article in less than an hour and published it across all her platforms. It was well-written, had sparked many discussions, and was already trending. Some people even asked if the "vegetable gardening blogger" had gone crazy.

"Let me think about it."

An Xian felt she needed to contemplate whether to believe the nonsense of an eight-year-old or to grab the feather duster and give her a thrashing. She knew her own daughter; even if she was smart, she didn't have the ability at this age to write such a coherent article.

Qin Xiaoyu turned her head. "Big Shrimp, I said the apocalypse is coming. Do you believe me? In three days, that sunflower you planted by the chicken coop will turn into a Gatling gun and go 'rat-tat-tat' at you."

Big Shrimp, gnawing on a chicken wing, mumbled, "I don't believe it. You're definitely just eyeing my sunflower seeds!"

Qin Xiaoyu: ... So much for the twin telepathy she was promised.

"Tell me more carefully, starting from the changes in the plants," An Xian said.

Qin Xiaoyu immediately perked up. She organized her thoughts briefly and began to recount. "The week Earth transmigrated, it rained heavily. The land area silently and gradually expanded. At that time, the plants just grew crazily—for example, the lettuce you planted grew taller than you. Gradually, some plants began to move without wind, and some even developed a sense of self-protection. The day the rain stopped, when you went to the vegetable patch to pick bitter greens, you got smacked in the face by them, and when Big Shrimp went to touch the sunflowers, he had an eye blinded by them..."

An Xian listened intently. The logic was clear; it really didn't sound like her eight-year-old daughter. Could it be that the apocalypse was real, and the Earth would truly transmigrate?

"How big is the planet we're transmigrating to?" An Xian asked curiously.

"Supposedly huge. To it, the mutated Earth is at most the size of a tiny air bubble on a basketball."

"Does that planet have other life forms?"

"I don't know. By the time I died, humans on Earth were so besieged by plants that we couldn't even step out our own doors. We were barely holding on; who had time to worry about the outside world?"

"So we haven't even made it out of the newbie village yet."

"Uh."

Big Shrimp, listening from the side, was excited. He quickly stood up and shouted, "Then will my sunflower head grow really big? Like this big, or this big?"